Tuesday, November 8. 2016

I hate French films. I love Italian cinema. If someone said that to you, you'd have a pretty good idea of what they mean in terms of aesthetics, style, mood. German film? Not so much, at least post-New German Cinema with its heroes Fassbinder, Kluge, von Trotta et al. Of course there is the contemporary (and equally auteur-focused) Berlin School with its Petzolds and Hochhäuslers (which German director Oskar Roehler defined as "slow and depressing"). And recently, Germany has been very strong and internationally successful in children’s films and high-quality animation. But these are vogues or sub-industries rather than a big picture, a brand, a distinct and distinctive brand.

Beyond that, it gets fuzzy. Which is an issue, for example, for a programmer at a Goethe-Institut largely tasked with curating "German films” or a German festival like Hof or the Munich-based industry body German Films, whose job it is to promote "German" films around the world. And depending on your answer to the question What is a German film, you could count about a third of all German films at any given TIFF. But perhaps it’s a moot point and we just have to adjust our interpretative framework of how we see -and compartmentalize and interpret- film. Or will the circles get larger, transnational, global, should we wonder what a European film is?

“There is no national culture anymore,” claims Susanne Gaensheimer, curator of the German pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2013 and director of the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main. Is this true for film? "100% German". "Majority German co-productions". "Minority co-prod". The terminology let alone politics around national cinema are fluid. Realistically, the first two categories are increasingly non-existent, with an under .5% North American market share according to a recent German Films market study.

Linda Söffker programs the Berlinale's “Perspective German Cinema", she is one of the über-curators of German film so to speak. Here is her take on the question what a German film is:
"In Germany, we have rules for nearly everything but this is a tough one. Usually, money rules the world, meaning: If a film is financed with more than 50% German money, it’s listed as a German production, regardless of whether director Miranda July (Berlinale 2011) comes from the US or director Michael Haneke (Berlinale 2010) from Austria. The audience might see this differently: Where and in which language was the film shot, where do the actors come from?”

In their 2014 analysis of the numbers, German Films states that "German-produced, English-language films like THE LAST STATION, THE INTERNATIONAL, A DANGEROUS METHOD, CLOUD ATLAS and RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION have been the strongest performers, and only two non-English-language German films – Michael Haneke’s DAS WEISSE BAND and Wim Wenders’ PINA – have crossed the all-important $1-million mark at the US box office since 2008 (Haneke’s AMOUR took over $6 million, but that was a majority French co-production), and only 10 of the remaining 33 solo German films or majority co-productions grossed over $100,000, with several failing to reach even the $10,000 threshold."

If you asked me as a programmer how I feel about the above: THE LAST STATION – not a German film. THE INTERNATIONAL & CLOUD ATLAS – I wish, but not a “German” Tykwer like “Run Lola Run” was. A DANGEROUS METHOD – quintessential Cronenberg thus a Canadian film in my books. RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION – “Hollywood”. Michael Haneke’s DAS WEISSE BAND – yes, very “Germanic”. Wim Wenders’ PINA – absolutely and all over German! AMOUR – certainment a French film!

At the end of the day, culturally and programmatically, it’s a case-by-case decision. A US-produced Werner Herzog documentary about Bavaria? Check. A German-produced Punjabi film set in India with a 100% Indian cast (last year’s TIFF hit "Qissa"), not so much. I love the fact that German producers and directors look abroad more than any other culture I know. At the Goethe-Institut, we have shown films with Toronto's Reel Asian Film Festival and AluCine for example, one by a German director --a documentary shot in Vietnam in Vietnamese, a language the director does not speak--, one by a Berlin-based Columbian director who squarely told me: “I am a Columbian director making Columbian films about the South-American experience.” Why did we present them? Because both films where great examples of the strong young work coming out of a handful of leading (very internationalized) German film academies, exemplifying a trend that is well worth watching and embracing.

What about Austrian and Swiss, meaning: other German-language cinema? Do we claim Ulrich Seidl, Michael Haenecke, Alain Gsponer as “German", as one would in the theatre world or the book market? I sometimes do, I sometimes don’t. Would I do a Bruno Ganz retrospective? In a heartbeat (most international audiences will hardly be aware of the fact that he is a Swiss actor). A “German” film tells us something about Germany, the state of the nation, the German psyche, where we come from, where things are at in the heart of Europe, where we might go. Okay, that could include “Inglorious Basterds” and “Monuments Men”, it’s not a watertight definition.

The details of industry rules and strategies around national cinema remain complex: "We are talking about ‘Danish films’ and ‘US TV productions’, and that proves how helpful a national label can be in terms of promotion," comments the head of German Films, Mariette Rissenbeek. "Our promotional focus –say distribution support or presentation at an international festival—lies with ‘majority German films’ with a majority German creative contribution. We will mention "Lunchbox" (TIFF 2013) in press releases – but it can’t be shown at German festivals nor receive distribution support nor be part of German Previews. German Films strongly integrates the work of German producers though, even if they only have a minority contribution to a film.”

I will leave you with Rainer Rother, head of Deutsche Kinemathek, who among other things is in charge of re-mastering and re-releasing (very) German classics such as “Metropolis”, and who takes a bold cultural stance here (and perhaps that's what’s often missing in a national discourse of self-doubt and Angst): “German film is groundbreaking, develops a new aesthetic – like ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’. It makes every effort, doesn’t resign in the face of difficulty – like ‘Fitzcarraldo’. It serves as a model for Hollywood – like ‘Viktor and Viktoria’ – and takes its inspiration from it, like “The Marriage of Maria Braun “. In short: when it’s good, German film can do (almost) anything.”

As Linda Söffker pointed out, it’s all about your perspective. Join the larger conversation we are having at the EUFFTO 2016 about what makes a European film or co-production European, including Canadian-German filmmaker Wiebke von Carolsfeld:

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You will hear from us from around the world of film. Our blogger Jutta Brendemühl is the Goethe-Institut Toronto's Program Curator and happy to hear from you.

Jutta is lucky to do what she loves: arts & cultural programming & writing across the genres, through a global lens. She has worked with Bernardo Bertolucci, Robert Rauschenberg, Wim Wenders, Pina Bausch, and other luminaries, and is one of the Directors of the European Union Film Festival Toronto. Her reviews are indexed on IMDb; bylines have appeared in POV, ScreenPrism, Vague Visages, Die Zeit. She is a fellow of the Toronto Cultural Leaders Lab.